Shadows of Heaven
by Composer of Words
Summary: The Olympians have fallen, and now, centuries later, the guilty goddess must find the gods' human incarnations, train them to fight, and make sure they don't do something stupid and get killed, because the Titans are coming and death is in their eyes.
1. The Contestants

**Welcome, welcome. I hope you enjoy this chapter. Please see my note at the bottom.

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**One: The Contestants**

Something was happening.

He could feel it.

The dark and deceitful shadow in his mind stirred once more, whispering to him, strangely akin to the mutterings of his brothers and mother during the reign of Time. His hand drifted to the curved blade at his side as hunger slithered into his thoughts.

The blade, stained with blood. The blade, which had given him power – and the blade which had failed to keep him in power. But as to the last, he preferred to think it the fault of his brothers and nephews.

He glanced down at his left forearm, covered in so many little tattoos. They were the marks of his victories and conquests, pleasing reminders of the blood that spilled from their throats and the life that left their eyes as he loomed over them, the triumphant executioner, the last thing they would ever see.

His brothers always said there was something wrong with him. Such was the price to pay for power.

Yet a million small victories could never avenge that massive loss so long ago. He could never be spared of all the humiliation. He had conquered them in the end, but they had found a way out. It was infuriating. It was an incomplete job, and someone was going to pay for it.

He drew his blade and casually beheaded a nearby Harpy, listening to the satisfying thud as her head fell and rolled away, leaving a trail of black blood across his pristine floor. He calmly sheathed his blade again and absentmindedly wondered what was on the menu for lunch.

A Minotaur picked up the head and left to dispose of it. A chimera followed, dragging the body away. It was a regular occurrence. His brothers had even assigned several monsters specifically for the task of cleaning up the perpetual trail of bodies in his wake.

There was a grunt as someone pushed the heavy iron door open. The human underling entered and immediately kowtowed to him, as was required before its betters. "Master?" it asked shakily, face still pressed against the stone floor.

He sighed. "What is it?" Humans never had anything interesting to say.

The underling took a deep, nervous breath before speaking. "We've located them all, master."

"Excellent."

"But, master –" Blinding and burning light flooded the chamber and the underling cowered in terror at its master's wrath.

His eyes blazed with a terrible, all-consuming fire. "_WHAT_?"

Maybe the chimeras would get human for supper tonight, after all.

"They're together this time!" the underling wailed as the light began to devour his pathetic, mortal soul. "They're allied! And _she _has found them!"

He froze.

Were they? Had she?

A cruel smile crept onto his face as the light faded away, and the chamber was dead silent but for the underling's fearful sobs.

Perhaps he'd actually have a challenge this time. It was so dreadfully dull to simply shoot them from afar, or to lace their drinks with poison. He missed the days of evisceration and drawing-and-quartering. And the Witch Hunts, those were good times.

His mind immediately began formulating plans. It would be so much… fun, with more of them. His mirthless laughter echoed in the chamber.

Let the games begin.

But it wasn't such a fun game for everyone, even though she had found them at last, and she hadn't been the least bit sorry to leave the smog of New York.

This town was small and quiet. That was good. Different. She preferred the peacefulness of suburbia over the chaos of the city and the desolate loneliness of the countryside.

For the past millennia, she had traveled all over the globe, racing from Moscow to Atlanta to London to Tokyo. Even she couldn't be in two places (fifteen, to be precise) at once. Now she could stay in this one spot and watch over them all.

If she located more than one of them, she had the unenviable task of choosing which to protect, as more often than not they were on opposite sides of the world. Not the case this time.

She usually didn't find her charges until they were adolescent. Before that, it was hard to detect their supernatural power. But as soon as one of them set off even a little spark, she and the Titans would swarm down on them, clawing out each others' throats in their attempt to get there first. She fought to protect them, while the Titans simply had one goal in mind.

Death.

The Titans almost always won. They were more in number and more powerful. She occasionally managed to smuggle her charge away, but they would either refuse her offer or end up dying anyway, and all her efforts would be useless.

This time, one of them had been unpleasantly surprised when he had discovered his powers. The Titans obviously knew about him, but they hadn't bothered to come for him yet and had sent only a few monsters that she'd squashed in an instant. They dismissed this one as minor. There were a few hosts whom the Titans searched for most fervently, and he was not one of them.

But when she had been scouting the area, she had noticed more power than there ought to have been for one person… or two… or three… but the right amount of power for fifteen.

They were all here.

The Fates were probably laughing at her right now.

Hilarious.

Elizabeth didn't know if she wanted to laugh or cry.

Lunch was already halfway over, and not one single student had picked up a campaign flyer. It was very disheartening.

To make things worse, she smelled trouble coming in three… two… one…

"Aw, no one voting for you, sweetheart?"

Elizabeth closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She must not let the overinflated fathead get to her – for the sake of her extremely fragile sanity. "Go away."

He looked at her, amused and clearly not moving.

She plastered a wide smile on her face. "Please?" It was so painful to smile at him.

He flashed a perfect, dazzling smirk back at her. He never smiled, only smirked. "Is that how you get your voters? It's obvious to see you're winning."

They stared at each other, neither willing to give in first. The tension between them was almost tangible. After all, their enmity had begun in kindergarten.

He started it.

People were starting to loiter, watching in anticipation. Their infamous arguments were like fireworks – brilliant explosions that were very entertaining to observe.

Elizabeth avoided him whenever possible, but he always started a fight when he caught sight of her. He didn't care if other people were watching. They wouldn't say anything about him. He was so popular, if he shunned someone, then everyone shunned them. Monkey see, monkey do.

Ignore, ignore, ignore.

She promptly turned her back on him and started to put the flyers in her backpack. Then out of the corner of her eye, she saw the pile nearest him falling onto the ground. She closed her eyes and sighed. "What did you do that for?"

"Do what?" he asked, confused.

"You just knocked over those flyers!"

"I did not!"

Elizabeth scowled. Her temper was running thin. "You immature, conceited pig – grow up!" She began collecting the fallen papers. Murderous thoughts ran through her mind as she envisioned shipping him in a wooden box off to Madagascar to live there as a hermit.

Ha. He and his pretty blue-gray eyes wouldn't last a week.

Unexpectedly, he also crouched and began picking up flyers.

The shock lasted only a second before Elizabeth remembered she was supposed to hate him. "Stop that."

"I'm helping you!"

"Yeah, that'll happen when pigs fly." She paused and tossed a smug smile in his direction. "Then again, I _have_ heard that you have a pilot's license."

He thrust a stack of the papers at her. "Uh-huh," he said wryly. "Who's the immature one now?"

They both reached for the last flyer. His hand brushed hers, and there was an audible _zap_.

"Ow!" Elizabeth immediately retracted her hand and nursed it. The patch of skin was throbbing and red. She shuddered as what felt like an electric current rippled across her arm.

"My God, that hurts so much," he drawled sarcastically. "It was only static electricity. No need to be such a drama queen about it." Then he noticed the color of the skin and frowned. "Let me see that." He took her hand.

She wrenched it back out of his grasp. "I don't need your help," she snapped, standing up. She picked up her backpack and turned to go. "You'd do more harm than good."

"Ouch. You've broken my heart, darling."

The endearment grated on her nerves. She stopped, hands on her hips, and looked back at him with narrowed green eyes. "You have no heart."

"_You have no heart_," Mitchell King mimicked as he headed to the parking lot.

Why the hell was it so sunny today? It didn't match his mood. It shouldn't be sunny.

His brother, Reed, who was one year older than him, was sitting in his Jeep with tuna sandwich in hand as he flipped through a magazine. It was _Sports Illustrated_, some car magazine, or a more adult brand. Probably the third.

Dante, his eldest brother, was… somewhere. Whatever. They'd see him later.

"Break up with Bess already?" Reed asked without looking up. Yup, number three.

Mitchell grimaced at the mention of his current girlfriend. That needed to change. "No." He flopped down on the grass, dropping his backpack beside him. "Harper said it."

Elizabeth Harper, SGA Presidential Hopeful. Elizabeth Harper, only girl in the universe who didn't like him. Elizabeth Harper, naturally blond unlike most of the girls he dated, and he was only certain of that because he'd known her since kindergarten when –

Reed looked up in amazement. "_Connie _said that?"

Mitchell rolled his eyes. "No, you moron, her sister!"

Connie Harper was Elizabeth's much kinder, sweeter, willowy older sister and the current love of Reed's life. But even though Reed had the naturally perfect black hair, legendary blue eyes, and dashing good looks that ran in the family, he wasn't very lucky with girls. That probably explained why he hadn't even begun wooing Connie yet.

Mitchell had gotten all the charm, so it seemed, though to be fair Reed had the charismatic personality that easily won over new friends, and the mysteriously absent Dante could talk his way out of anything.

Reed shrugged and continued flipping through his magazine. "At least Connie doesn't look like she wants to kill me every time I talk to her."

Mitchell scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous, I don't like Elizabeth." What was Reed talking about? He hated her. Loathed, detested, despised, abhorred, resented –

"I never said you did," Reed said in a sing-song voice. "But there's enough sexual tension between you two to suggest otherwise." He cracked up and ducked as an apple hurtled through the air. It missed his head and landed harmlessly on the parking lot, rolling away bruised – like Mitchell's ego.

Mitchell lay down and glared up at the sky. Still clear and blue. Clouds still fluffy and white. Birds still singing like it was some freaking Disney movie. If deer and rabbits started dancing out of the woods, he was going to kill something. Preferably Reed.

He lifted and examined his right hand, which had touched Elizabeth Harper's several minutes ago. Nothing looked wrong with it.

But static electricity didn't normally turn someone's skin painfully red.

"Hmm," Mitchell muttered. It was strange. Lately, when he got static electricity, he didn't feel the shock as much. But he could hear those little zaps growing louder and louder, like the one earlier. He could sometimes even see sparks, though that might've been his imagination.

Maybe he was becoming some kind of superhero that controlled electricity. That'd be cool.

He started on his sandwich and noticed the sky darkening.

Finally. The atmosphere was getting too happy for his taste.

Stupid Mitchell, Elizabeth silently cursed as she ran her injured hand under the bathroom sink faucet. He always ruined everything. Was it his mission to ruin her life? She wouldn't be surprised if it was. She could just imagine his schedule:

Make out with Girlfriend Number One. Play soccer. Make out with Girlfriend Number Two. Drive Elizabeth insane. Make out with Girlfriend Number Three. Plot how to make Elizabeth go insane.

"You should stop getting so wound up about Mitchell all the time," the ever-wise Connie suggested. "He's not that bad. Maybe it's just you."

"Connie, you know why I hate him so much," Elizabeth said impatiently. "You even told me that he was in the wrong and I had every reason to be upset."

"But that was eleven years ago," her friend Sage interjected, absentmindedly braiding her wild brown hair. "We thought boys still had cooties back then." She narrowed her eyes as she tried to untangle a knot. "So how's your presidential campaign going, Lizard?"

Elizabeth grimaced. "Not as well as I'd hoped. Everyone knows that Bessie Jones is Mitchell King's current paramour, so they're going to vote for her just because of that." See? He was even ruining this for her. He just had to be dating the girl who was her opponent for SGA president.

Sage looked up and frowned, though her eyes were teasing. "What do you have against girls who go out with Mitchell?" she said snippily. Her wide brown eyes and tall, curvy figure attracted many of the male population, including Mitchell last year.

Sage hadn't taken him seriously, considering he was a year younger, but had agreed to go out with him as a favor to Reed because, apparently, Mitchell had been making his entire family go crazy with his infatuation for her. But Mitchell quickly realized that they weren't romantically compatible and the two had parted on amiable terms.

"I'll never forgive you for that." Elizabeth sniffed haughtily. They caught each other's eye and burst out in giggles.

Sage patted Elizabeth's shoulder. "Don't worry about the campaign, Lizzie. I'll stuff the ballot boxes with your name."

Connie laughed. "What century are you living in? No one uses ballot boxes anymore. They use computers for votes now."

"Then I'll find a hacker," Sage said stubbornly.

Elizabeth shook her head, smiling. "Sage, it's okay. I'd rather win on my own terms."

Sage was silent for a moment as she considered this. Finally, she said, "Can I at least make the environmental club spell your name in petunias?"

Elizabeth rolled her eyes, still grinning, and started walking out of the bathroom.

"Or I can get Keene to sneak into Bessie Jones' house and sabotage her campaign. How's that?"

Keene Price was a scrawny brunet freshman in dire need of a growth spurt. His best friend was Leo Archer, a sophomore, and they only knew each other because when Leo had moved here, he'd accidentally been placed in kindergarten instead of first grade, and the teacher made him and Keene share a desk. Leo had accidentally broken Keene's blue crayon so Keene had drawn a mustache on his face when Leo had fallen asleep during story time. By the time Leo was moved up to the proper grade level, the two were the best of friends.

In sixth grade, Leo had developed a huge, still ongoing crush on Connie Harper, a then-eighth grader, and he made Keene stalk her. Connie and her friends eventually noticed the munchkin-sized fifth grade following them, but of course Keene was so adorable that they let him into their circle of friends without hesitation.

Keene was now a master at worming onto people's good sides and talking his way out of sticky situations. His gift of gab had also been responsible for getting him "hired" as Mitchell King's personal private investigator, though he was assigned such a wide variety of tasks that "private investigator" no longer did his job justice.

One thing for sure, he'd never expected to be the one stalked.

Keene couldn't shake off the feeling that he was being watched. All the time. When he waited for the bus in the morning, when he was in class, when he chilled outside during lunch, when he walked home from the bus stop.

On very rare occasions, he could feel the staring at night. He would run to the window and look outside, only to find nothing but darkness. But the last time this had happened, he had seen something – a pair of red, inhuman eyes, for a fraction of a second, and then it was gone.

He was also seeing snakes. When he walked to Leo's house, he would just catch its tail disappearing into the forest behind the Archer residence. Not to mention the large, deformed birds that took off when he turned around – birds that cawed something in between a screech and a cackle.

Keene had asked Phoebe, Leo's twin and the local animal expert, about the snakes and birds.

She'd made a face at the mention of the reptile, the only animal she didn't like. "I don't know anything about snakes. None of our dogs have been bringing back their carcasses and burying them in the yard." But she promised, "I'll keep an eye out for those birds, but it's probably nothing. Maybe it's only a funny shadow."

Then Keene casually mentioned to Leo that he felt like something was watching him, ready to shrug it off if Leo laughed and called him paranoid. But Leo had turned serious.

"I know. I have this feeling that something's going to happen."

But Leo hadn't mentioned it again, so Keene kept mum about it.

As it were, Keene had other, more important things on his mind, such as the best way to dump Mitchell's girlfriend for him.

As Keene searched out Mitchell's now ex-girlfriend, Leo sauntered up and propped his elbow on Keene's shoulder. Sometimes, Keene really hated tall people.

He frowned and pushed off Leo's arm. "I'm working!"

"Right." Leo rested his arm on Keene's head. "What is it this time? Finding out what one of the midfielders on his team did on Saturday night?"

Keene scowled as Leo began tapping a beat on his skull. "Mitchell is breaking up with his girlfriend."

The tapping paused. "And he gets you to do it?"

"Part of the job," Keene said in a long-suffering voice.

"Wow. What's your pay?" The tapping resumed.

Ah, pay day. Best day ever. "It's worth it." Keene continued scanning the hallways for Bessie.

Leo's next words piqued Keene's interest. "I heard something following Phoebe and me this morning when we were walking to the bus stop," Leo said quietly. His elbow slid off Keene's head.

Keene quickly stepped an arm's length away before Leo tried to reclaim his armrest. "Did you see it?"

"For a few seconds." Leo smiled humorlessly. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you what it was."

"Just tell me."

Leo hesitated. "It looked like Bigfoot."

Keene bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing, until he realized Leo wasn't joking. Then, before he could respond, something stopped him.

He had found Mitchell's ex.

Bessie had dyed blond hair and an admittedly nice tan, was pretty and somewhat popular, and was one of those girls who didn't eat lunch.

Really, how could anyone get through the day without lunch?

"Watch the fireworks," Keene muttered to Leo. He walked over, putting on his politest, most innocent expression and voice. "Bessie Jones?"

She looked at him, eyebrows raised. Freshmen didn't usually suddenly approach upperclassmen. "Yes? What do you want?"

Keene tried to keep a solemn, apologetic face. It didn't help that he could see Leo doubling over, trying to stifle his laughter. "Mitchell doesn't think your relationship can work anymore."

He could see it clicking in her mind. Now she recognized him as Mitchell's lackey, as he was sometimes condescendingly called. To his alarm, her hands latched onto his shoulders, her fingers digging into his skin. "But why?" she demanded. "We've been dating only for a week!"

Keene's brain worked quickly. "He doesn't want to influence your chances in the upcoming election. Rule of law and everything, you know."

At first, she looked stunned. Her grip loosened enough for Keene to slip out. Then when her eyes grew watery, Keene began backing away, groaning internally.

Why were girls so emotional?

But finally, she settled – on anger. "So that jerk has you do his dirty work for him?" Her rising voice caught the attention of the hallways' other occupants.

"We tried to tell you, Bess," one of her friends said. "We said that he'd only play you."

"But what I would give for a day with him," another said dreamily. She wasn't exactly the brightest crayon in the box.

Bessie turned on them. "Why didn't you stop me? You knew I thought I could change him! You should've tried to convince me more!"

Now that her attention was safely turned away from him, Keene raced away as if a banshee were at his heels, followed by a highly-amused Leo.

"You should've seen your face!"

"Shut up!"

There was probably only one student in the entire school whom Keene didn't know. No one knew him, actually. But Braden was fine with that. He did kind of have a problem.

Or two.

Or three.

Or… well, he had a lot of problems.

He heard voices. Big problem there. He could usually ignore them and go about acting like a normal person (well, as normal as _he_ could be), but not this time, and these voices were the reason why he was having a mental breakdown behind the school.

Something had happened to him, and he wasn't sure how to describe it. Magic? If it was magic, then it wasn't the happy abracadabra stuff they showed on TV. This magic was dark. It hurt. It was bad. It was driving him insane.

If a team of psychologists could've seen him at that moment, they would have diagnosed him with several dozen mental disorders. That would be science's perspective.

The truth, however, was much bleaker. Because those voices weren't a part of his imagination.

Because one of those voices had been heard by countless people for ages, one desolate human at a time.

Because that voice belonged to one of the Olympian gods, whose soul currently resided in Braden.

And that Olympian wanted out.

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**Thank you for reading, and many thanks to The Sky's Bouquet for their invaluable advice!**

**I go into slightly more detail in my profile, but here it is - I've been querying literary agents about this story (which is complete). Some of them request the first chapter or first few pages in addition to the cover letter, so quite a few of the agents I've queried have seen this chapter. I would greatly appreciate any critique, because the first page - the first _sentence_ - could be what makes or breaks it with an agent, if the story can capture their attention long enough. **

**Alas, I cannot offer any tangible rewards, but you will have my eternal gratitude if you can tell me how to improve (but please, no flames). If you have written your own stories, I'll gladly review/critique them if you ask me to (provided that they are in fandoms I'm familiar with). Thanks again!**


	2. The Game Begins

**I re-uploaded a rewritten version of Chapter One a few days ago, so if you haven't read it yet, I encourage you to take a look. Thank you!  
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**Two: The Game Begins**

Braden's impending madness was only a sign of things to come. Possibly even a trigger. After all, magic was alive in its own way and, with them all in such close proximity, perhaps their magic was slowly waking each other up.

Too bad magic tended to react at the worst moments.

Dante was not in a good mood. Obviously, since he seemed intent on stoning the goalie to death with hockey pucks. Then again, the goalie was Elton Caine. No one liked Elton Caine. Still, Dante winced slightly as one of his shots hit Elton a bit too hard and knocked him down onto the ice.

There was a loud bang as Coach Wood pounded on the rink's glass barrier. "Take five!"

Dante offered a hand to Elton. The goalie only glared at him before struggling to stand on his own. Dante shrugged and skated towards the rink's exit, removing his helmet and mouth guard. He separated himself from his teammates, who were laughing and shoving each other around. He sat down on a bench just outside the rink, leaned back against the wall, and shut his eyes.

Something must've been in the air today, because he hadn't been the only one to break up with his significant other. But Mitchell had a new girl every other week. Dante had been with his girlfriend for three years.

They'd broken up during lunch. No fighting, no arguments, no fanfare. Just walked away.

"Dante?"

His eyes flew open and settled on the girl standing in front of him, shifting nervously on her feet. She was very fair-skinned, probably fourteen years old, and resembled a porcelain doll – innocent and fragile looking.

She looked vaguely familiar. That quiet determination in her brown eyes. Dante had seen it somewhere before. He was still trying to work it out when she gathered enough nerve to speak again. "Are you okay?"

And here he was, thinking he was actually pretty good at hiding his emotions, when a freshman he didn't even know could see what he was feeling. "Of course I am," he snapped, angrier at himself for being so weak than at her question.

She was taken aback by his harsh reply, but she squared her shoulders and said evenly, "Just making sure. You looked…" She hesitated. "Sad."

Dave Allen, Dante's least annoying teammate, poked his head out of the rink. "Coach wants us back on the ice!"

Dante nodded. He stood, looked at the girl, and was about to say something to her when he felt a sharp jolt of pain in the back of his head. He grimaced and rubbed the sore spot. No injury. Maybe it was another headache. "Thank you for your concern," he muttered to the girl. He stepped back into the rink without another look back.

Dante joined the team in laps around the ice. But the ever increasing pain in his head started to slow him down, and he found himself trailing behind the others.

Coach Wood was not impressed with his captain's speed. "Dante! Pick up the pace!"

Dante sped up just until he was side by side with the person in front of him. Unfortunately, that person was Elton.

"So," Elton drawled, "heard your little brother dumped another of his girlfriends."

"That happened during lunch. It's ancient history by now." Dante was more irascible than usual, from the unpleasant combination of a headache and Elton.

"Well, that's not all I heard happened this afternoon."

Elton was baiting him. Dante wasn't going to gratify him. "You mean Elizabeth Harper campaigning? I think I'll vote for her." Everything was spinning. Dante stopped in his tracks, swaying on his feet. The lights, turning on and off and on and off and on and off and he really hoped he wasn't going to be sick…

Some kind of fog was drifting onto the ice. He almost laughed when he saw a blurry hand extended toward him. Definitely hallucinating.

Oh, Elton was talking to him. "– your girlfriend break up with you?" Elton's voice was distorted and Dante could see two of him. Great. Two Eltons. Just what the world needed. "Kind of sad when the guy gets dumped –"

Everything vanished. Memories that weren't his forced their way into his head.

Darkness, cold, damp, alone but for a single flame. Children wailing, nothing to be done, couldn't help, could only hold them and wait, wait for something. Glorious light for an instant and then it was drowned in blood and death, so much destruction, so much wasted. So much life lost. Years of loneliness and desolation, enviously watching Heaven and the Upperworld until –

Pain blinded him and raged through his body. Cold, dead hands groped at him. He spun around, looking everywhere manically, but all he saw was red. The screams began to crescendo, and soon his eardrums bled from the shrieking. He forgot how to breathe and then someone was screaming his name and he couldn't goddamn think and he just wished everything would _SHUT UP_!

And then everything stopped.

It was dark. The lights had gone out. But Dante recognized the girl from earlier, clutching his arm like she had been frantically shaking him. Her brown eyes were wide with terror and shock.

Dante took a deep, shaky breath. His throat was raw from screaming. He carefully touched his ear with his free hand. No blood there. No fog. The rink wasn't spinning anymore.

Where were all his teammates? His eyes fell on the collapsed heaps on the ice, and his heart skipped a beat. Dante wrenched his arm out of the girl's grip and immediately knelt and checked to see if the closest person, Elton, was breathing. Dante let out a sigh of relief when he saw his chest slowly rising.

He heard a scraping sound and glanced up to see the girl quickly skating away. Dante frowned but continued to check his other teammates' conditions. They were all fine, as was Coach Wood, whom he had found unconscious on the floor outside of the rink.

Now all he wanted to know was… what happened?

There was one person who could answer that. After looking back to make sure no one was in imminent danger, Dante made his way to the building's second rink, where he had seen the girl go into.

So Dante didn't like her. No big deal, she thought as she watched him rejoin his teammates on the ice. It wasn't as if she liked him or anything. No way. Not even if he was cute. Which he was. Kind of.

"Ivy! Back to work!"

She groaned in exasperation.

"Vat did you say?"

"Coming, Ms. Sokoloff." Ivy restrained herself from making a rude gesture at her skating trainer and trudged back onto their rink. Sage was still on the ice, and she beamed, nodding encouragingly, as Ivy got back on.

Ivy smiled back at her older sister before Ms. Sokoloff started barking orders again. Ms. Sokoloff's pinched, hawk-like face scrunched up as she ranted. "I told you, three spins een air before you land! What do I get? Two spins. You want win shiny medal, you do what I say." Ivy wanted to tell her where to shove that stupid medal.

Ms. Sokoloff opened her mouth again when the lights started flickering. She frowned and snorted. "Cheap lighting…"

Ivy's eyes widened. "Sage?" A fog was creeping across the ice, slowly surrounding them. The lights went out.

She froze when she heard a chilling scream.

A very familiar scream.

"Sage!" Ivy tried to turn and skate at the same time and tripped. Her sister was a short crawl away. Ivy shooed away the fog that tried to settle over Sage and was trying to shake her awake when the other screams came.

Sobs, moans, desperate prayers to God. Each one stabbed her through the heart. Ivy wanted to cover her ears and shut the world out.

She tried to lift Sage, but she barely had enough strength to stand up herself. Ivy had to find help. The closest people were Dante and the hockey team.

She'd already run into their rink when she realized, the other screams, they were coming from _them_.

She scanned the fallen boys for Dante until she saw him in the center, the only one still standing. But he was far from okay. He didn't scream, but the agony on his face! She never wanted to look as tortured as he did now.

"Dante!" She launched herself onto the ice and raced toward him. "Dante! DANTE!" She latched onto his arm and shook it. "Dante, you're okay! You're –" Ivy stopped.

It was him.

He was doing this. She knew it. She just knew.

Dante started as if he had suddenly woken from a nightmare. She watched as he breathed and, for some reason, reached up and touched his ear. Horror spread across his face as he saw his fallen teammates, and then her hands were empty as he began checking his friends.

Sage! Ivy sped off as fast as she could and burst into her rink. She gasped when she saw Sage stirring. Ivy cast a cursory glance at Ms. Sokoloff, ascertaining that she wasn't dead, before focusing all her attention on her sister.

Sage mumbled something incoherent and Ivy quickly shushed her. "Don't strain yourself. Something just happened. I'm just going to – to –" Ivy didn't know what to do. Call the police? What good would that be? There was nobody to arrest…

"So that's why I recognize you." Dante stepped onto the ice. "You're Sage Greene's sister."

Right at the only moment she didn't want to see him. "Sage and I don't look that much alike."

Dante gestured at Ms. Sokoloff. "Is she all right?"

Ivy waved him off. "She's fine."

A heavy silence hung between them as, once again, Ivy checked Sage for any injuries. Then he finally asked the question. "What happened?"

"I was…" Ivy trailed off then tried to start again. "There…" Honestly, she didn't know what happened. Everything felt like a terrible dream.

Shouting started up in the other rink, and for one horrible moment, Ivy was afraid it was all starting again. But the shouts weren't the same as before. They were annoyed and exasperated. Not panicked and despairing.

Dante was off in a flash. Ivy looked over Sage one last time before cautiously following him. The first thing she saw was who she presumed was the hockey coach, looking like he had dozed off on the bench. On the ice, the hockey team was in a giant pile, grumbling irately and blaming each other for tripping. Dante looked just as bewildered as she felt.

Once again, Ivy returned to her rink and hesitantly peered inside. Sage was sitting on the ice, rubbing her head, while Ms. Sokoloff cradled her arm, which had a shallow cut. "Clumsy girl," Ms. Sokoloff muttered, shooting death glares at Sage.

Ivy turned back around, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. Everyone was okay. The hockey team had a minor accident. Sage had crashed into Ms. Sokoloff, who got a cut from her skate.

But that wasn't what had happened. Everything was wrong.

Ivy looked up and saw the edge of someone's coat disappearing around the corner. Had they been hurt, too? She ran over, shouting, "Hey! You –" She stopped. The hall was empty.

All these twist and turns were hurting her head. Maybe she really should pretend this was just a nightmare.

One of the best dreams Irene ever had was being woken up by her mother on a Monday morning and promised a large, buttery, syrupy plate of pancakes that her father had made just for her. When she got home from school, she and her father chose a random book from his shelf and read aloud to each other. In the evening, she and her mother watched soap operas and make fun of the characters. When it was time for bed, her parents tucked her in and turned off the lights.

In reality, she stood alone in a cold, empty house that was occupied by her and only her for the greater portion of the year. And no matter how much she tried, she could never make pancakes that tasted as good as the ones in her dream.

At the moment, her parents were content with five-star room service in Rio de Janeiro.

Irene huffed in annoyance, crumpled up the note with "Mommy's kisses," and tossed it in the garbage. She didn't need them. She could take care of herself. She had a big house, her father's library, and could have steak and potatoes delivered home every day if she wanted to.

Irene started off for her study, ready to splurge with nary a care. But she paused and looked thoughtfully at the kitchen. Pancakes first, she decided. Then splurge.

She made more pancakes than she could possibly eat and then plopped down in front of her computer, wondering where to begin. eBay, perhaps?

Irene found a several nice, expensive sets of encyclopedias and reached into her backpack for her calculator to see which collection was the worst deal. Her brow furrowed in confusion as her hand landed on a strange, metallic object.

She withdrew a silver pocketknife. Its handle reflected her narrowed gray eyes as she wondered where the knife came from. Did someone plant it in her backpack to try to get her in trouble? She pulled out the blade to see if the idiot had inscribed his name there.

The knife rapidly grew, longer than her arm within half a second. Irene shrieked and immediately dropped it. The sword bounced on the floor once, gleaming in the dim light. She gripped her armrests and stared at the sword. For the first time in her life, her mind was completely blank.

It was a fake. Had to be. Some kind of joke shop item. Keene was probably behind it. Irene let out a nervous laugh and reached down to pick up the blade.

Irene grunted as she managed to lift the handle several inches before she had to drop it again. That thing was heavy! Maybe it wasn't a joke sword. Irene frowned as she tried to work out how someone could have hidden a blade that big in such a small pocketknife disguise.

She jumped as the doorbell rang. Loud knocks quickly followed. "Irene! Let us in!" Irene relaxed when she heard Elizabeth's familiar voice. Elizabeth and Connie were probably here to coerce her into going to the mall.

Irene looked back down at the sword, biting her lip. Was she just supposed to leave it on the carpet? Couldn't she just change it back to pocketknife form?

As if it could hear her thoughts, the sword did just that. Irene gaped at the pocketknife lying there innocently.

"What's that?"

Irene yelped in surprise and banged her knee against the desk. Elizabeth and Connie stifled their laughter. "How did you get in here?" Irene demanded.

Elizabeth shrugged. "The key's still under the mat, just like last time when your mom showed it to us." Mrs. Clark was convinced that her daughter had no social life whatsoever – which was partially true – and treated anyone who was remotely friends with her as family.

"So?" Connie prompted. "What is this?" She picked up the pocketknife. "Looks cool. When did you get it?"

"Uh, it was a present." Now if only Irene knew who'd given her this lovely gift. She took it back from Connie and examined it again. "Oh!" What she had thought was a design on the handle was actually letters. The letters didn't look Latin, though. At least, not all of them.

"Oh, what?" Elizabeth asked curiously.

Irene clammed up. "Nothing. Just want to get to the mall already." She'd figure out what the letters spelled out when she came back home later.

She ended up forgetting about the pocketknife, and it wasn't until weeks later that she finally remembered. And by then, she already knew the answer.

* * *

**So. Hell Weekend has passed. Between the time I woke up Friday morning (6 a.m.) and the time I went to bed on Sunday (midnight), I went almost 24 hours without sleep and almost 24 hours without food. My total amount of sleep in this time span was ten hours, and all I ate this weekend was a small burger, some noodles, and a few cheese crackers. I've also discovered that I really hate coffee.**

**No idea how I'm still alive.**

**Reviews are always welcome, and critiques are much appreciated. Thank you!**

**And many thanks to The Sky's Bouquet for their critique on the original Chapter One, which gave me a sense on what to fix for the rest of the story. :)**


	3. The Passing of Names

**Three: The Passing of Names**

Keene was the first to notice them. A tall, pretty, slender girl with black hair, and three old ladies clutching giant tote bags. Nothing abnormal.

It was a warm September morning, yet a cold shiver ran down his back. He turned around to look at them again.

The girl was about sixteen years old. Her hair was long and straight as a pin, but not unnaturally so. Her skin was almost white, and her eyes were light, icy blue. Over her outfit of black clothes was a black trench coat, and she had black fingerless gloves.

Okay. Quite a lot of black, but maybe that was the fashion? But he was wondering why she was holding an open black umbrella. It wasn't raining, and there was no rain in the forecast. Maybe she was using it to keep the sun off. She looked like she burned easily.

The three old ladies were all short and wrinkly, with white hair and colorless eyes. Keene couldn't look at them for longer than a few seconds at a time. He had the conflicting urge to bow to them but also to run away screaming at the top of his lungs. The ladies were all the way across the street, but he still felt like a squirming bug that they could and would flatten in an instant.

The girl stood beside the bench that the old ladies sat on. The first old lady took a light blue string out of her bag and passed it on to the next old lady, who stared at it intensely, sliding her fingers along it. She finally settled on a spot and handed the string to the last old lady, who produced a pair of scissors and made to snip the string.

The sound of his heartbeat filled his ears.

The girl noticed just in time and said something sternly to the third old lady. The lady scowled but handed the string back to the first old lady, who carefully placed it in a box that held many more strings, countless strings, carefully ordered and arranged. He unconsciously stepped forward as he tried to get a closer look.

The lid snapped shut, and the three old ladies simultaneously looked up and stared at him. Their eyes, filled with memory and age, stared so intensely that it unnerved him. For one moment, he felt horribly exposed, as if his entire life had been laid before them for their perusal. When they finally looked away, he sighed in relief.

The girl met his eyes, smirked, and – to his surprise – saluted him. "Auntie Nona, Auntie Decima, Auntie Morta, it's time to go." She helped them up.

"Thank you, dearie," the first old lady said.

"Stop rushing me!" the third old lady snapped. "And we're not your aunts."

The girl gritted her teeth but said nothing. They began to walk. A crow squawked loudly next to Keene, and he jumped, whirling around to stare at it.

Actually, it looked more like a raven. And its eyes were strange... But the bird flew off before he could get a better look, so he turned back around.

They were gone.

What were they doing, sitting right outside of the school? Keeping an eye on it? Why did they want to leave without him seeing? Why did they carry so many strings around? Were they spying on the school? If that was the case, then they were the worst spies ever. They were right in plain view.

The bell rang, and Keene took off for class, though he might as well have skipped. He couldn't pay attention at all. He even missed Mr. Emerson accidentally blowing up a hot dog in Chemistry because he had been looking out the window, half-expecting to see the old ladies and the girl watching him.

They weren't run-of-the-mill grandmas with their hired helper. Something big was going on. Something kept nagging at him from the back of his mind. Three old ladies with a bunch of threads. He couldn't bring himself to actually say it out loud. It was too ridiculous.

When he joined Leo, Phoebe, Elizabeth, Connie, and the others for lunch, he seized the opportunity to question Irene. She was the most logical and sensible out of them all. And the smartest. If she said that he was being silly, then he'd forget everything that happened that morning.

"Do the names Nona, Decima, and Morta sound familiar to you?"

Irene paused in thought. "I'm more familiar with them as words," she said. "_Nona _is Latin for 'ninth,' _decima_ is Latin for 'tenth,' and _morta_ is Latin for 'death.'"

Who would name their child "death"?

"I take it they're not typical names, even for little old ladies?" Keene said a little too hopefully.

"They're not very common names, but certainly people _can_ be named so. Pity the poor child who is, but… If I remember correctly, in Greek mythology, the three Fates' Roman counterparts were named Nona, Decima, and Morta."

He swallowed nervously. "The Fates, the ladies who decided how long people lived?"

"Yes, they were. Clotho, or Nona, spun the thread of life. Lachesis, or Decima, measured the person's life, decided how long they would live. And Atropos, or Morta, cut the thread and chose how the person died."

His skin prickled. "They didn't have a fourth companion who took care of them?"

"Not that I know of. The Fates were perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. Zeus himself, the King of the Gods, couldn't sway their decisions."

Keene exhaled and hoped his next question wasn't too stupid. "What if I met the Fates?"

Irene stared at him. Then she burst into laughter, and Keene took a huge bite of his peanut butter sandwich when Leo and Phoebe looked over at them, wondering what was going on. "You – met – the – Fates!" Irene giggled but then suddenly sat upright, as if she just remembered something. "The knife," she murmured.

"The what?"

Irene looked at him suspiciously. "Did you plant a pocketknife in my backpack?"

He had no idea how the Fates reminded her of pocketknives. "Why would I do that?"

Now she looked troubled. "Fine. Sorry for laughing at you. Let's just pretend this conversation didn't happen. Okay? Great." She buried herself in her book and didn't look up again. Keene was left on his own to figure out this extremely confusing turn of events.

So the first thing he did when he got home was Google the Fates, but nowhere in any article did he read anything about a fourth companion. By the time he went to bed, he knew what to do.

The girl and the three old ladies were there again the next morning. Keene went right up to them, all the while wondering what kind of animal they'd turn him into. Hopefully something with wings.

"Good morning," he said politely. Politeness was always the way to go, right?

"What do you want?" the third old lady asked irritably.

The first old lady clucked her tongue. "Be nice to him, sister. He looks like such a nice little boy!"

The second old lady shook her head slightly and looked at Keene. "Good morning to you, too."

The girl only bowed her head in acknowledgement, but she seemed to be on the verge of smiling. Smirking, more likely.

"Hurry up, we haven't got all day!" the third old lady snapped when Keene didn't say anything.

"Actually," the second old lady said, "we do have plenty of time to spare." The three of them smiled, as if sharing an inside joke.

Keene glanced at the ladies' tote bags, and the first old lady's eyes brightened. "You're wondering if it's true that all old ladies carry around big purses full of treats, aren't you?"

"Er, yeah." He really wasn't.

"Since you're such a polite boy, we'll all give you a gift." The first old lady looked at the others in confirmation, and they both nodded, albeit the third reluctantly. "Give me your shoes."

Keene looked at her in disbelief. "What?"

"Just do what she says," the girl said, speaking for the first time. Her voice was smooth and cool like a river, and she sounded utterly bored.

Well, the worst thing that could happen would be that he had to walk around in socks for the rest of the day. He hesitantly removed his shoes, and the first old lady took them. She tucked them into her bag and pulled out a brand new pair of golden sneakers. "Ta-da!

"Um. Thanks?" Keene suspiciously examined them before putting them on. They were surprisingly comfortable, and they didn't look like they'd been booby-trapped to poison gullible children. Like him.

The second old lady was rummaging around in her bag, and she pulled out a silver pen. Two silver snakes were intertwined and curled around it, their ruby red eyes bright and almost alive, and a pair of silver wings was rested at the top.

"What do you think this looks like?" the lady asked.

Keene stared at it blankly, before a single word flashed across his mind. "A caduceus." He didn't even know what a caduceus was.

The lady smiled and handed him the pen. "You know your mythology."

Not really. "Thank you."

And the third old lady gave him… a baseball cap. It was a plain, black baseball cap, with two tiny wings stitched in bronze thread on the sides. "Don't lose it," she warned him.

"I'll try not to."

"Don't lose any of your gifts," the second old lady said. "They're worth more than you think. You'll need them someday."

It was going to be kind of hard to lose his shoes. He was starting to regret ever approaching them when the first old lady advised, "You should get to school, before you're late."

Keene nodded. "Right." He took a deep breath. "Erm, thanks again for your gifts. Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos." He nodded at each as he said their names. Their expressions were unreadable as they gazed back at him.

"Keene." The girl had spoken. "Keep a sharp eye out. The world's a dangerous place."

It wasn't until he was in class that he realized he'd never told any of them his name.

* * *

Keene didn't sit with his friends during lunch that day. He wasn't the only one missing from the table, though. But Caleb usually didn't sit with anyone.

Caleb was Elizabeth and Connie's cousin. Most of the time, his lunch would be forgotten on the table while he sketched designs for inventions that he planned on creating someday. Today, he was making a blueprint of the underground lab he wanted to build in his house. How he was going to convince his parents that it wasn't crazy, he neither knew nor cared.

"Hi!"

He didn't hear at first, too immersed in his work. It wasn't until the person waved her hand in his face that he finally looked up. And stared.

It was the new girl. The extremely pretty redheaded new girl whom Caleb had thought as distant from him as a movie star was from a fan.

Oops, she was waiting for him to say something. "Uh, hi?" He scratched his head. "Um, I'm Caleb. Smith. Caleb Smith. Yeah. That's my name." He wanted to slam his head against the table.

"I'm Juliet. Leroy. Juliet Leroy." She smiled and seated herself across from him. Caleb just kept staring. "Sorry, you must think I'm weird. My boyfriend is getting help from his teacher, and I usually sit with him. Besides, you looked like you could use some comp –"

"Hey, Jules! Juliet!"

Caleb shrank in his seat as the football team's linebacker, Gene Chaulson, got up from their table.

Juliet pursed her lips and faced him. "What?"

"You don't have to sit with _him_ just because your boyfriend's not here." Gene gestured at Caleb. "You can still sit with us."

"Maybe she'd rather sit at a table where there's altogether more than half a brain." Caleb had definitely not meant to say that out loud. And it was kind of mean. Football players weren't necessarily stupid. The captain was pretty brilliant. Unfortunately, the captain hated Caleb for some reason, and Caleb would rather have made an enemy out of a stupid person. Like Gene, only preferably someone not as gigantic and muscular.

Gene scowled. "Watch your mouth, twerp, or I'll –"

"Beat me up, dunk my head in the toilet, feed me to your bulldog?" At the rate he was going, Caleb would be dead by sunrise.

Maybe he should run.

Caleb surreptitiously gathered up his notebooks and mentally mapped out the best escape route. The brace on his leg was going to hold him back.

He took note of Gene's expression – clenched teeth, flared nostrils, everything. He'd draw it out later and call it _Portrait of a Gorilla_.

Gene stepped toward him, and Caleb took it as his sign to run.

Caleb hobbled the short distance to the door, glancing at Elizabeth and Connie's table, wondering why none of his friends had noticed his little dilemma yet. Surprise, surprise, the one day he needed them most and everyone was mysteriously missing.

He was about to make it to the door when it suddenly swung open. There stood Alexander Lewis, captain of the football team. Before Alexander could comprehend what was happening, Caleb ducked under his arm and hightailed it out of the cafeteria.

* * *

When Caleb was out of sight, Juliet sighed and buried her face in her hands. Everyone in the cafeteria was watching, yet no one had done anything to help Caleb.

Including her. So she didn't really have an excuse.

She glanced down, and her eyebrows rose in surprise. Caleb had been anxiously gripping the metal bars under the table when he'd tossed all those insults at Gene. She tentatively reached out and touched where Caleb's hands had left imprints on the metal. If he'd gripped any harder, he would have broken the table.

Caleb was an adorable kid, but he definitely did not work out. Juliet was still staring at the twisted metal when Alexander walked up to her. "Hi, sweetie," she said absentmindedly to her boyfriend.

He sat down beside her. "So why was pipsqueak running away from Gene like his life depended on it?"

"Pipsqueak?"

"Caleb Smith."

"You don't like him?"

"You do?" he countered.

Juliet rolled her eyes. If she'd wanted immaturity, she would've stayed in private school. "Go sit with your friends. I'm going to read for the rest of lunch. I'll just bore you. Go on." She laced in extra charm with her last command, and Alexander got up and left without much argument.

She really liked Alexander, but sometimes she just wanted to slap some sense into him. Juliet opened her book and looked to see which myth she was on now.

Cupid and Psyche. She loved that one.

* * *

Mitchell wandered around the school, bored out of his mind. So many clubs and meetings were going on. SGA, band and orchestra, environmental club, newspaper, they all wanted to talk today. Reed was at that newspaper meeting, even though he wasn't on the paper. He was probably waiting for Connie Harper to come out of it. And Dante was meeting with his hockey team.

He rounded the corner and was promptly knocked over. Some sophomore landed on the floor beside him. "Sorry!" the kid apologized as Mitchell sat up and made sure nothing was broken.

"It's okay, no harm done," Mitchell muttered. He stood and offered a hand to him. The kid was average-height but broad-shouldered, with mousy brown hair, hazel eyes, and a brace on his right leg. "Have I seen you from somewhere?"

"Oh, you're Mitchell King. My cousin hates you."

Mitchell was taken aback. "And your cousin would be?"

"Lizzie Harper. I'm Caleb."

That explained it. "Tell her I give her my love," Mitchell deadpanned. "What's with your leg?"

Caleb glanced down. "You mean my brace? I thought everyone knew. Guess it only went around my grade. You're a junior, right? Same as Lizzie. I got in a car accident almost a year ago. This is my battle scar."

The kid talked a lot, but Mitchell was starting to like him. "Sorry about that."

"It's okay. I'm used to it now. I'm just mad that the guy got away. I was walking home from a football game last year – I was absolutely miserable but Lizzie says everyone has to go to at least one football game – and someone pulled a hit-and-run on me."

Mitchell froze.

"Have to run now, I kind of pissed off some football players. Alexander Lewis is probably going to lead the pack."

"Alex Lewis. That's my cousin."

"Really? Huh. I guess there's kind of a resemblance. Bye!" Caleb hobbled off.

Mitchell sank back down on the floor.

Now he wished he'd never met Caleb.

* * *

**Reviews and critique alike are welcome. :)**

**(Slightly off topic - there's a new girl who sits next to me in Bio. Apparently, she likes mythology! Now I have a new victim - I mean, new peer with whom I can converse on Greek myths.)  
**


	4. Manhunt

**Four: Manhunt**

Phoebe was so spoiled. She always got what she wanted. All she had to do was bat her eyelashes at their father and that was that. And now, somehow Leo was stuck doing the grunt work of Phoebe's oh-so-modest request.

His twin wanted a sleepover. Never mind that he and Keene had already been planning for ages on using the tree house. She wanted it for her party, which she had suddenly decided just last night to host.

"Let your sister have it, Leo," Mr. Archer said sternly.

"But Keene and I wanted it first!"

"Keene can come over whenever he wants. Phoebe can only have a party every so often."

"This isn't even a birthday party! She wants a party just to have a party."

The tree house had a smaller counterpart deep in the woods that Phoebe might or might not use during her sleepover, but she suggested that someone should still check to make sure it was safe and not rotting away. Mr. and Mrs. Archer were preparing the food, and Phoebe was busy entertaining her guests. That left only one person to make the hour long round-trip to the watch tower, as the smaller tree house was called.

"If I ask for something, I'm spoiled. But if she asks for something, she's 'such a darling and how could we possibly deny her?'" Leo muttered as he stomped a pinecone. The unfairness of the world was _crushing_.

He was getting his revenge, though. He'd invited Keene to come crash the party and bring as many other uninvited guests as he could find. Hey, it was his home, too. Phoebe got the tree house, and Leo got the actual house and all its internet, video games, and junk food.

Leo had taken out his anger on enough pinecones by the time he reached the watch tower. Unlike the tree house, which could fit ten people and had rope swings, its own lookout tower, screened windows, and glass bottles and wind chimes hanging from nearby branches, the watch tower rested in the highest oak tree, fit a maximum of four, and had a single rope ladder. But Leo liked it because if he wanted to be alone, he could roll up the ladder and stay inside as long as he wanted.

He tugged on the ladder as a precaution, to test its strength, before he dared to climb up. He hadn't been in the tower in years. He opened the trapdoor and coughed from all the dust he had displaced.

Leo grabbed the small broom in the corner and swept all the dust out. Even if Phoebe didn't use the tower, he might in the future. He checked the floors and walls, making sure nothing was rotten. Everything was satisfactory, and he was about to leave the tower when he felt someone watching him.

Alert, he quickly pulled up the ladder and shut the trapdoor before moving to the window. The forest was still.

His heartbeat slowed back down to a normal pace. Then he heard faint, ghostly laughter. "_So paranoid, Leo_…"

A low, growling sound resonated through the woods. The noise unnerved him even more than the voice.

"_Run, Leo. Now. There's still time._"

Something in his gut told him to listen. He threw the trapdoor open, tossed the ladder down, and half-jumped, half-climbed the twenty feet to the ground. He raced through the trees, and all he could hear was the pounding of his own heart.

The growling sound was long gone by the time he reached home. He could hear everyone on the back porch, including Keene and some other guys, but all he wanted to do was go to his room and sleep.

Which he did.

Mrs. Archer woke him an hour later. "Your friends are almost done eating."

"Not hungry." Leo buried his face in his pillow.

"You should eat something if you want to join them later. They want to go in the woods and play some kind of game."

His eyes widened. Without another word, he ran out of his room and downstairs. He skidded on the porch and was momentarily blinded by the setting sun.

"Sleeping Beauty awakens!" Keene shouted.

Leo counted Phoebe's guests. Connie, Elizabeth, Irene, Ivy, Sage. And it looked like Keene had invited Mitchell, Reed, and Dante King.

Phoebe shoved a hot dog into Leo's hands. "Eat up, sleepy head."

He obeyed, but it tasted flavorless and stuck in his throat. He continued chewing as he observed the others. Keene and Irene were fighting over the last cookie. Connie, Elizabeth, and Sage were huddled by the flowerbox, whispering. Mitchell and Reed were debating something. Ivy and Dante were in deep discussion.

The last pair surprised Leo. He wasn't aware Ivy and Dante knew each other.

Phoebe was watching him with a look of concern. "You look troubled."

Leo swallowed the last bite. "Phoe –" His voice was raspy. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Phoebe, do you really have to go to the woods? Why don't we stay in the house?"

"If you're feeling sick, you don't have to come with us. The others really want to play manhunt."

Everyone was going to be off by themselves in the woods. At night. Making lots of noise. How comforting.

"Phoebe, I really don't think we should go in the woods," Leo hissed.

"Why not?"

Because there were monsters and ghosts in there. But Phoebe wouldn't believe him. Who would? "There's some kind of wild animal in there. It's not safe."

Phoebe's dark gaze met his amber eyes. "You can't lie for your life, Leo. What's the real reason?"

He clenched his jaw. "Forget it. I'll play. I can be It." He knew the woods like the back of his hand. The faster everyone was found, the faster they could all get out and away from whatever that beast was.

* * *

Keene had already heard several people being caught. Leo was faster than he'd thought. But Keene was still faster, and he was determined to be the last one.

His senses were on super-alert from all the adrenaline. And the sugar he'd consumed. He was so far away from the others, all he could hear was the sound of grass being crushed beneath his running feet.

But that stupid silver pen kept stabbing him in the leg. It was in his pocket. Why did he bring the useless thing with him? It couldn't even write. It just looked cool and that was it.

No time to hide the pen. He shook his head and focused on the game. In manhunt, the hunted had two options – keep moving, or stay still and hide. He preferred to move.

It was a new moon, or close to it. He wasn't very good at astronomy, and the treetops were thick. He only had instinct and his lessened eyesight to go by.

That made it more fun.

He heard more footsteps chasing him. Keene grinned and turned to see who it was.

The smile disappeared instantly.

"Shit!" Keene put on an extra burst of speed. There was an insane, rabid beast at his heels, and it looked hungry.

Keene reached up and snapped a tree branch backward. It smacked the beast's head and slowed it down long enough for Keene to put more distance between them.

Then he tripped. On a goddamn tree root. He fell forward, face racing for the earth.

He flew off the ground.

Keene shot up ten feet in the air. He jerked left and right, up and down, slammed into trees, got scratched by branches. His pen slipped out of his pocket.

He caught it by the tips of his fingers. Then his flight plan decided to dive and head straight for the beast. Keene panicked and swung at it.

His pen immediately grew into a short staff and made an audible crunching sound against the beast's head.

While the monster was down, Keene glanced down at his shoes. Little wings were sticking out the sides. He slowly reached up and touched the side of his hat, which had miraculously not fallen off during his Flight from Hell. More wings.

He tried to steer up. The beast regained its senses and growled at him. Keene cursed again and pumped his legs furiously, and he shot straight up in the air. More branches scratched his face, and then he broke through the treetops.

The starlight and little moonlight blinded him for a moment. Then he began to bounce and ricochet off of the trees, until one of his bounces missed and he fell back down to the ground, crashing through more branches.

Scratches were everywhere. There would be quite a few bruises in the morning. Keene groaned in pain as he lay sprawled on the grass.

Someone applauded, long and slow. He frowned and managed to sit up.

It was that girl who had been with the Fates. She had a smirk on her face. He'd only ever seen her three times, including now, but she seemed to have only two expressions. Bored and smirking.

She gave her last clap. "Good job. I didn't think you'd live through that."

"Who are you?" he croaked. His throat was parched. He could taste blood and dirt in his mouth.

She shrugged. "I can be your best friend, or your worst nightmare. Take your pick."

Keene personally chose the first one but didn't say so out loud. "Why do you keep following me around?" He coughed and spat on the ground, trying to get rid of the nasty taste.

She handed him a bottle of water. He seized it and chugged it down, choking halfway, but he was so thirsty he didn't care.

"I don't," she said in response to his last question. "I wait and watch for any of you. You're just the only one who noticed me."

His throat was much better. "What do you mean, any of us?"

Her face darkened. "That's a story I best tell all of you. Should we find the others before Cerberus' cousin eats them?"

Keene's brow furrowed. "Cerberus? The three-headed dog that guards the Underworld? He's not real."

She shook her head in disappointment. "I thought at least you would have an open mind. But if you're still not convinced, by all means, go ahead. Just wait here and see if that hellhound doesn't kill your friends."

"I'm only saying that I don't think _Cerberus_ is real!" Keene argued. "But I know there's _something_ out there."

"That _something _is a hellhound."

"They aren't real!"

She closed her eyes and started mumbling to herself. "If the others are all like him, I'm going to have a lot of work to do, as if I didn't have enough already…"

She was insane.

"You can just stay right here," Keene said, turning his back on her. "I'm going to get my friends so that thing doesn't kill us all." And maybe call the nuthouse on her.

"You don't believe in hellhounds, but it's normal for you to suddenly start flying? Do you take it in stride when your pen magically changes into a caduceus?" she demanded.

Keene looked at the aforementioned object. He scowled. "I'm not going to sit around talking with someone who thinks pixies and leprechauns are real. I'm going to help." He prepared to take off.

"I was serious when I said that I was surprised you'd survived." Her words made him stop. "Your short flight was just a fluke. You don't know how to do it again, and hellhounds only take so many hits to the head before they decide to just kill you already."

That was it! "ARE YOU GOING TO HELP OR NOT?" His voice echoed in the forest.

She stood, alert, when they heard howling again. "Great. Now I have to go with you," she griped. "As we speak, the hellhound is heading this way. I can handle it, but I'd rather you not become dog food."

Someone screamed. The hellhound howled again. "Come on!" Keene started to run.

She suddenly appeared in front of him, leaning against a tree. "Lessons will have to start early," she said unenthusiastically. "So you're the rightful owner of the magic cap, flying shoes, and caduceus. Lucky for you, you have a shortcut. Say _ptísi_. And it is very important that you get the pronunciation right, or you may end up doing something not as pleasant."

"_Ptísi_," Keene repeated. He slowly rose in the air.

"Then use your caduceus to help steer. Point the head – that's the end with the snakes – in the direction of where you want to go, and focus. The closer to one hundred and eighty degrees you angle the caduceus, the faster you go. Enjoy the ride."

Keene looked at her, annoyed, before shooting into the sky

* * *

**Shortest chapter yet. Sorry about that. Hehe. But brevity is better than rambling, inane, contributing-not-to-the-plot dissertations?**

**...So, anyone watch the TV show The Borgias? It's about a family called (you guessed it) the Borgias. I freaking love it. (And no, not because of Assassin's Creed...) But I won't jabber about it here, since I'm not sure how many of you watch it.**

**Well, the full manuscript for this story is currently under consideration by an agent. Won't be hearing back from them for months, probably. Whatever their answer, I'll probably be crying when I hear it (be my tears from joy or sorrow). A few other agents are still only at the query process.**

**Anyway, as always: reviews make me feel warm and fuzzy, and critiques help me grow as a writer. ^_^**

**(I'm also feeling the dire urge to discuss Greek mythology with someone. ^.^)**


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